Tag Archives: US

New research of intelligence documents suggests that high government officials of the United Kingdom, France and the United States of America allowed Mladic and his army to proceed to the safe area of Srebrenica in 1995, while being aware of the risk of humanitarian disaster. (more…)

Germany has decided to limit its cooperation in joint intelligence efforts with the United States. The decision comes in the wake of revelations of US spying on European partners and signals a breach in the long-standing information sharing partnership between the two nations. For the United States, the restriction follows a series of ‘blows’ to its intelligence apparatus which have included reconsideration of its drone programme, a renewal of the Patriot Act, and a recent ruling by the Appeals Court that its practice of surveillance data collection was illegal. (more…)

The Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, James B Comey, told Polish ambassador to the United States that he regretted remarks made earlier which suggested Polish complicity in the Holocaust. The comments were made in the context of a speech given at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, parts of which were reprinted in The Washington Post. The offending passage read: ‘in their minds, the murderers and accomplices of Germany, and Poland and Hungary, and so many, many other places didn’t do something evil. They convinced themselves it was the right thing to do, the thing they had to do. That’s what people do. And that should truly frighten us.’ (more…)

The sale of American military hardware is on the rise in the Middle East, reports the New York Times. Defense industry officials notified Congress that Arab allies fighting the Islamic State – Saudi Arabia, the Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Jordan and Egypt – are set to purchase thousands of American-made missiles and other weapons. Until recently Gulf Nations militaries have been “a combination of something between symbols of deterrence and national flying clubs. Now they’re suddenly being used”, said Richard L. Aboulafia, a defense analyst at the Teal Group. Saudi Arabia has become the world’s fourth largest defense market, spending more than USD 80 billion on weaponry last year, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute tracking global military spending. The Emirates and Qatar have followed suit, the Emirates spending nearly USD 23 billion last year and Qatar signing an USD 11 billion agreement for the purchase of Apache attack helicopters and an air defense system. (more…)